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Picture Yourself
publication date: Dec 19, 2010
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author/source: Brad Hamill
Picture yourself sitting in an enormous shopping mall during the busiest day of
the year. Customers are flooding the stores, exiting with more bags than they
can comfortably carry. Retailers have incredible inventories of merchandise to
suit even the most finicky buyer. The parking lot is jammed with cars of every
type, make, and model. What conclusion can you draw from this picture, as you
sit sipping a cup of your favorite coffee?
NOTHING you are looking at has been paid for with completed labor. Zero…Nada…Zilch. None of the purchases, none of the inventory, none of cars in the parking lot, not even the cup of coffee that you are enjoying. EVERYTHING eventually has to be paid for via the future labor of subsequent generations. This sudden realization shocks you to the core. You make a run for the exit and find yourself ensconced in the safety of your car. Your body is shaking as beads of sweat break out. You can’t stop thinking about all of the lies that you were told, and the horrendous effect they will have on the family you so dearly love. Their economic future has been destroyed, all so that current and past generations could live the ‘American Dream’. A thought strikes! You’ll stop by the coin dealer on the way home and buy up as much gold and silver as you can find. At least you can pass that on to your progeny! The coin dealer is happy to see you. He is even happier when he is able to sell you $20,000 of precious metals. The commission on your sale alone will bode nicely for his family’s finances. You get back into your car and feel your pulse rate begin its return to a normal level. The day seems brighter again as you breathe a huge sigh of relief! Then the dreadful truth hits you. ALL of the gold and silver that you just purchased was bought with the future labor of generations to follow – the same ones that you were so desperate to protect! NONE of the gold and silver was purchased with your completed labor. Not one speck. It’s all too much to handle. You need to get home and sort things out. The drive to your house is one that will haunt you for the rest of your life. Every building you see, every road you drive on, all the clothes that the pedestrians are wearing –EVERYTHING THAT HAS PREVIOUSLY BEEN PURCHASED – was purchased with labor that has yet to be completed, and can only be bought with labor that is not yet performed. You pull into your driveway and shut the engine off, while staring at your house that has had absolutely no labor completed towards its purchase. It all makes sense now. Your heart weighs heavily in your chest. The tears flow easily. You now understand that EVERY SINGLE PAYMENT TRANSACTION which occurs in our nation each day is another claim on the future labor of those we had immense dreams for. “STAND ON MY SHOULDERS JOHNNY!” “I’M BUILDING YOU A DOWRY SUZY!” Meanwhile, our generation – and those past – have stolen the wealth of the future and left them in slave-based poverty. We have lacked the vision and the COURAGE to stand up against the institutions that have created perpetual economic slaves out of us all. We pretend that the issue is one of paper currency versus gold and silver – instead of the real problem of money based on debt (future labor) versus a righteous standard of completed labor. I probably have everyone scratching their heads in confusion right about now. Brad, you don’t understand. I WORK 40 hours a week and bring home $1,000 each payday. That money IS No, it’s not. Let’s go back to what money is. Everyone tries to make “money” a complex issue to understand. It’s really very, very simple. “Money” is a claim on the future labor of someone or some group of people. Money might have the promise of interest (extra labor) attached to it, such as in the case of most loans and bonds. Usually, that money also has a period of time assigned defining when the interest must be paid and what the repayment terms are. One form of money pays no interest and has an immediate “maturity” date. This means that the bearer of the money can “cash it in” at any time desired. There is a term for money of this type – “currency”. Currency is the only form of money that can be used for normal financial transactions, since it’s the only form of money that has no maturity period still pending. Our nation has used debt-based money for most of its history. Here’s a very brief description of how this system works, and why the money that you receive in your paycheck does not represent your completed labor. Let’s assume that “Joe” wants some money to make a purchase with. Joe takes out a sheet of paper and writes: “I, Joe, promise to pay $1,500 in one year’s time, in return for $1,000 paid to me now.” Joe makes sure to not affix his signature yet to the newly formed promise of debt. Doing so would give anyone who happened to hold it rights to his future labor. Now it’s time for Joe to visit to his town’s marketplace – where he attempts to have somebody buy his debt. If nobody purchases the debt then it remains worthless. A nice gentleman comes along and decides that the terms of Joe’s debt would be a good deal for him. Joe attaches his signature to the debt paper and gives it to him. In return, he gives Joe 1,000 of some kind of token that merchants accept. This could be paper bills, gold, silver, or any other type of suitable material. England used sticks of wood, known as “Tally Sticks” quite successfully for over 700 years. The money supply of the nation goes up by $1,500 at the end of the transaction. The man lending the currency now has a promise of $1,500 of Joe’s future labor, due within one year. Joe has $1,000 of currency that he can use right now to buy things – even though he hasn’t done a lick of work in order to get it. Both Joe and the man have money in their possession. Only Joe has the type of money called currency. One year passes. Joe doesn’t have any money (he spent it all), but needs to somehow pay the lender back. What’s Joe going to do? He’s going to “roll” his debt – just like what happens with our nation’s debt. Joe makes up a new document. This time he writes: “I, Joe, promise to pay $3,000 in one year’s time, in return for $2,500 paid to me now.” Another gentleman makes a claim on Joe’s debt promise. He gets the promissory note for $3,000 and Joe gets $2,500 in currency. Joe pays back the first man his $1,500 debt. That $1,500 of money now ceases to exist, since it was only brought into existence through the claim on debt. That claim has now been paid off. Joe also has an extra $1,000 of currency with which to spend. He owes the second gentleman $3,000 at the end of another year. Joes has successfully “rolled” his debt – but ONLY AT THE PROMISE OF MORE FUTURE LABOR! The point is this. Everything that somebody earns on their paycheck through their completed labor is really just money that is paid back to previous claims on future labor. They were working as a slave to pay what had previously been promised – either by them or a government on their behalf. So if the completed labor represents payback for previous promises then what does the money in the paycheck represent? It represents claims on the future labor of others. Think about what I just wrote. Our completed labor pays back previous claims, which causes the nation’s money supply to decrease – since money is only claims on future labor, not based on completed labor. Our nation cannot survive in a debt-based economy when money is constantly disappearing through completed labor. This is why the debt needs to be “rolled” as described above. New claims on debt need to replace completed labor – or our money supply would vanish. We are burdening future generations with an immense amount of labor to pay for everything we enjoy today. Likewise, previous generations saddled us with a gigantic amount of required labor to pay for those things which they were partakers of. Look around you next time you’re out and about. Every financial transaction that you witness will need to be paid back by the future labor of our children, our grandchildren, our great-grandchildren, etc… May God have mercy upon our wretched economic structure that disobeys His Word in every way. May God grant us wisdom and courage to turn from these wicked ways! Your comments and questions are welcome… or visit www.newfamilyeconomics.com If you are not currently on the Economic Update email list you can email me at: brad@newfamilyeconomics.com to be added. There is no charge and your email address will never be shared. based on my completed labor!  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